Product Management: Crafting a product mission and vision

If you are aspiring to be a product leader, you might have read books, blogs and stories on how to set a mission and vision for your business, product or company. We know it is not an easy exercise. Where do I start? How are mission and vision different? Should I focus on customers or our values or the direction we are headed in?

Defining a mission and vision requires time and commitment but it is a very rewarding experience. You are not just thinking about today but the future of your team, project, or organization. You get to define what tens or hundreds of people might work on. The mission and vision will inspire people and bring them together to work hard on a common cause.

Often, mission and vision are used interchangeably. Companies often use mission statements to define their purpose and values. The mission is not about your customers or current business, but the intrinsic goals and reasons for the organization to exist. Examples include:

· TED: Spread ideas

· Tesla: Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy

· Google: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

· Alibaba: Make it easy to do business anywhere

· Walmart: Help customers save money so they can live better

Once the mission statement is ready, the product vision helps describe the future you are trying to create which is a few years or a decade away (depending on the industry). The purpose is to inspire and motivate your employees and investors to contribute to the organization and align them towards a common shared goal.

Based on my experience and having read Marty Cagan’s Inspired, I recommend the following techniques and tactics to define your mission and vision:

· Focus on WHY (why does the organization exist, why do customers use it’s products, why do investors believe in it)

· Think about WHAT (what does the future look like, what areas would you invest in, what outcomes are you expecting for your customers and stakeholders, what areas would you not invest in)

· Be INSPIRING (both the mission and vision statement cannot be anything but inspiring; reach for the stars!)

· EVANGELIZE, Evangelize, Evangelize. Particularly, in larger organizations, you need to do this constantly. This is a must so people have heard the vision, that they understand it, and are bought into it. It is absolutely your job to do that.

· ITERATE and use EXPERT help as needed. Lots of people and teams have done this before. Business leaders and creative thinkers have talked about it and run workshops. Content experts have done magic with words. You might need to go through a few versions but keep at it and you will get there.

As you do this, engaging with key leaders and partners across the organization is important. For example, in a retail technology organization, that would mean business (merchandising, pricing, fulfillment, marketing, finance etc.) and technology (product, design, engineering) teams. The exercise might take time but the outcome is worth it. And remember that there are no right or wrong answers. Companies sometimes do change their mission statements (Facebook did that in 2017) but is not very common.